BOSTON -- Sept. 2, 2014: In April 2014, the 1968 Vienna Convention was
relaxed in allowing autonomous vehicles on the road so long as the system
"can be overridden or switched off by a driver." The law change will
increasingly enable the testing of self-driving prototype vehicles in real
driving conditions.

The Strategy Analytics Automotive Electronics Service (AES) report,
"Autonomous Vehicles: Evolutionary Deployment – Revolutionary
Outcome?" suggests that while the capability of these prototypes already
exist, in reality there are still a number of issues that have to be
overcome before they can enter the mass market.

These issues include:

The current lack of high performance components needed to make the
autonomous driving system operable, such as data processing chips; The high
cost of autonomous driving systems, due to complexity and costly
components, that will limit their appeal to consumers; The concerns
consumers have for the reliability of the autonomous driving system, given
that system failure at highway speeds will likely result in fatal
collisions; and Legislation could seek to address concerns over reliability
and place onerous validation requirements and insurance liability on the
automotive industry. "As a result of these issues, the deployment of
autonomous driving will actually be rolled out in stages – as an
extension of ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) applications, but
with increasing autonomy," said Kevin Mak, Senior Analyst in the Automotive
Electronics Service (AES) at Strategy Analytics. He added, "As high
performance components become available, consumers will become more
accustomed with ADAS, and economies of scale are generated from platform
designs, then increasingly levels of autonomy will be deployed –
starting with Traffic Jam Assist. New players to the industry will also
provide the much-needed impetus for autonomous driving developments, such
as Google and NVIDIA."